Manos Faltaits (1938-2012)
Son of the renowned Greek journalist, author and researcher Kostas Faltaits, Manos Faltaits was born in Athens on 3 January 1983. He was a man with great political, cultural and artistic action and was honored by the Academy of Athens in recognition of his contribution to the preservation of the Greek cultural tradition. He founded the museum in 1964.
Son of the renowned Greek journalist, author and researcher Kostas Faltaits, Manos Faltaits was born in Athens on 3 January 1983.
He studied political science at Panteion University and Law at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. However, he never practiced Law.
From the very first years as a student, he developed significant political action, by organizing and creating the post-war student movement. During the 1955-1958 period he played a key leadership role as the president of the National Student Union, an association that developed intense action on critical national issues, such as the Cyprus dispute and the Northern Epirus issue. In 1958 he found himself at the first line of the student rallies for the unification of Cyprus with Greece. In 1962 he founded the National Union of Fighting Youths (PEAN) (which had a different action from the PEAN that was founded during the Occupation of 1941), organizing the fights of the young people against globalization.
At the same time, sensing the disastrous impact of globalization on the Greek tradition, he struggled, along with his national and social fights, to preserve and promote our traditional heritage.
In 1963, in cooperation with leading Greek intellectuals he organized the movement for the Greek intellectual regeneration, declaring the year of Pericles Giannopoulos, which was regarded as the greatest intellectual event of that year in Greece. In 1964, at the age of 26, he founded the Faltaits Museum, the first local folklore museum of Greece, to which, he devoted the greater part of his life. For this action, as well as for his valuable contribution to the rescue and preservation of Greek tradition, he was awarded in 1976 by the Academy of Athens.
Starting from 1979, together with his partner in life and struggles, his wife Anastasia, and the support of some close and devoted friends, he organized the movement of Aesthetics Renaissance, inspired by our Ancient, Byzantine and modern traditional heritage.
In parallel, until the end of his life, he developed and he taught, both in Athens and Skyros, at the School of the Road, his theory of "Daismos" and Communalism, the bipolar shape of Harmony and Disharmony, the Universal Soul and Consciousness, as an integrated worldview and biotheory. In 1993, he founded together with Anastasia, the Palaiopyrgos Watchtower in Skyros Theatre and the Festival of the same name, where every summer major cultural events take place.
Manos Faltaits, The Artist and Author
Manos Faltaits developed a rich literary and painting activity, from the 1980s until the end of his life.
He studied painting alongside Dimitrios Pikionis and Fotis Kontoglou. He developed his own artistic movement, which he called "soulvisioning painting" and which, according to Manos, "reveals the soul of the portrayed subjects, whether these are human faces, trees or buildings".
He painted a plethora of paintings and sketches, only few of which are exhibited in the museum, due to inadequate space. He painted his last works in early December 2012 while he was in hospital.
Manos Faltaits also wrote more than 60 historical, folklore, literary, political, philosophical, theatrical and poetic works, while there are still many works that remain unpublished.
